Minn. won't get new senator until Feb.

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ST. PAUL, Minn. (AP) | Minnesota won't have a second senator until February at the earliest after the state Supreme Court gave itself several weeks to consider Democrat Al Franken's request for an expedited election certificate.

The court said it would hear arguments on Mr. Franken's petition to get a certificate before the conclusion of a lawsuit by Republican Norm Coleman, but not until Feb. 5. The court order also granted Mr. Coleman's request to intervene in the case, which names Gov. Tim Pawlenty and Secretary of State Mark Ritchie as defendants.

The development extends an already lengthy fight over the last undecided Senate seat from the 2008 elections.

Also on Wednesday, Mr. Coleman proposed a schedule for the trial on his lawsuit disputing the recount results, which showed him 225 votes behind Mr. Franken. Mr. Coleman led in the election-night count. His recommendations would push the trial well into February and probably beyond.

In a filing, Mr. Coleman recommended conducting the trial in stages. He said the case should proceed to the next step only if he gains "a sufficient number of votes" in the prior stage. A spokesman for Mr. Franken said he will submit his own, shorter timeline on Thursday.

The decision rests with three district judges appointed to hear the case.

Mr. Franken wants to take office before that lawsuit is resolved, but the governor and secretary of state say state law bars them from issuing an election certificate before then. Mr. Franken's petition aims to force the officials to act without waiting for the lawsuit to play out.

Mr. Coleman's legal team said it was pleased by the court's decision not to rush the Franken request.

"The Supreme Court's scheduling order has thrown cold water on the Franken campaign's latest power grab," the Coleman team said in a written statement.

Under Mr. Coleman's proposal, the court would take up disputed absentee ballots first. Both sides claim in court filings that hundreds of absentee ballots were wrongly excluded. They want the exteriors of the sealed ballots examined for voter compliance with state law and want to get the incorrectly rejected ballots opened and counted.

A later stage in Mr. Coleman's plan would address ballots from Minneapolis that election officials say went missing. The Democrat-led board that oversaw the recount decided to use Election Day machine tallies for that precinct to account for the lost ballots. The decision benefited Mr. Franken.